OPINION: Is David Moyes’ departure from Manchester United good or bad for Norwich City?

Axed Manchester United manager David Moyes and new 'interim manager' Ryan Giggs.

Chris Lakey
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
10:56 AM

Tut, tut. Fancy sacking a manager this close to the end of the season. Presumably Manchester United will now be accused of being “bonkers and deluded” following David Moyes’ exit with just four games remaining in his first season in charge at Old Trafford.

The Theatre of Dreams has become a horror story, and The Chosen One is now The Broken One.

But while Reds’ fans around the world wring their hands over their club’s current fall from grace and most others simply laugh, Norwich City fans will be wondering what it means for their team who, conveniently or inconveniently, depending on your point of view, are at United on Saturday evening.

My first reaction on Monday afternoon when it was clear that the national media had had a “nod, nod, wink, wink missive” from an 0161 prefixed number was that it was a good thing for Norwich. A quick straw poll suggests I am in a minority of two.

To me, Old Trafford is a place for Red Faces, not Red Devils; United have sacked a manager without giving him the time they promised, the time that his predecessor Sir Alex Ferguson was given, admittedly by different owners. They have sacked him with four games to go in a season which has petered out into nothing. Wouldn’t it have been advisable to wait until the season was over and save at least a little bit of face?

United go into Saturday’s game with Ryan Giggs in interim charge. Will they be better for it? Will it lift Old Trafford? Will it lift the players?

Clearly, there is no guarantee, but my initial thought was that Noriwhc could benefit. All is not well at OT, Norwich are promising something of a resurgence in attitude, if not results - surely, Saturday’s game weas there for the taking?

HOughton was not sacked, Hughton was. Man U are not guaranteed European football, they have the remotest chance of the Europa Cup if they win all their games and Everton lose all theirs. Moyes was not sacked to appease the fans but because he failed to deliver what the money men expect of any Man U manager, ie Champions League football. That loss of CL football is, for United, their equivalent of relegation hence Moyes went. Giggs will be relaxed about his situation, so will his team. Adams is under pressure, so is his team. Relaxed United v Tense Canaries. Who do you fancy?

The thing is, D!ck, on an item about football, on a football-specific message board and aimed at football fans, you will tend to find most commentators do care... about football. Odd isn`t it? Otherwise, surely they wouldn`t waste their time commentating, as you did. There are indeed far, far more important issues to `care` about. But they do not feature on these Football message boards. Capisci? Comprehendere?

To answer the headline question, it is probably bad for Norwich but more than that it is a bad fixture to have when you are scrapping for points to save the season. I don't care who is managing United and how little they have to play for, they have quality players who even on their worst day can still hurt us on our best day, as can Chelsea and Arsenal. However, I will be cheering as loud as anyone if our belatedly appointed rookie manager produces three miracle results.

Hey tractorboy, if you do get lucky enough to have The Great Norwich City on your fixture list next season, will you still be gloating when you get spanked again like the last time we played 1p5wich ?
You really dont want us down there.

I was at the united game back in the seventies, I don't seem to remember all the trouble although I was in the barclay end , no one gave city much of a chance then but now I think they have no chance and are heading back to the championship they might even end up bottom

I was also at that fateful ManU match, in the River End so I got a good view of the twerp dancing on the asbestos roof of the Barclay and then falling through. I had a friend with me from Huddersfield who was most impressed by the whole affair and especially that Manchester lost.

Its going to make no difference to Man Utd playing effect that David Moyes has gone, he was only the manager, he wasn't the one running up and down the pitch, Norwich needs to worry if Van Persie is playing. Now Ryan Giggs has taken charge, a person who has been at Man Utd for many years and of whom everyone respects at the Club. the team will play harder for Giggs than they ever did for Moyes. Norwich no chance...

Defo good to see the old Norwich back,but in my opinion the games up and we are solely reliant on other results going our way.Not expecting anything from these 2 away trips as our defence is simply not good enough!

OK so far under NA we have lost twice but it is the manner of those defeats that is encouraging.Under the previous management any attacking ability in the players was shackled to fit into the ultra defensive mindset of the Manager which still leaves us with one of the worst defensive records in the League.NA is giving players freedom to go forward.We deserved something at Fulham and Liverpool were fortunate to come away with anything with 2 deflected goals.NA's tactics are transforming the way we play and I don't think all is lost.If it is then it is the Board who must shoulder the blame for not making the change months ago as the majority of us wanted and said so repeatedly on this site.

This Moyes sacking is a joke, a team 7th in the Premier league, guaranteed European football, albeit not the Champions league, stinks of sponsors threatening next season sack Moyes or else. With Norwich sacking Houghton it was different, we are facing relegation

Yeah..I was also at that game when dopey fell off the roof...remember outside afterwards when they broke through the police lines and were charging up the pavement through the city fans...remember dropping my then " small " son over someones garden wall to protect him from the yobs....city to win on Saturday...

I too saw the Manc roof trick. What a buffoon. I applauded the Board for finally getting rid of Hughton and the Adams effect has been extraordinary. We may not be any better off points wise but we are certainly playing with ambition and passion compared to the limp performances under Hughton. I fear the Giggs effect may be more startling in terms of confidence and freedom and I would definitely have preferred to be playing a jittery Moyes outfit.

GPL I take your point and I agree that it is about appeasing fans. However I would argue we got rid of CH too late rather than too early and the performance against Liverpool was much better than a CH team ever managed against them. I would go as far to say that if we had made the change at Christmas we wouldn't be in this mess at all.

Oh and sorry, we won't win at Old Trafford. Or Stamford Bridge. Shame of monumental proportions but too much inaction from the Board for too long. Naive is the word and If that lot don't get a football person involved right quick we're stuffed for next season too.

Goss Volley football fans need to see the Executioner coming when the Board members of football clubs pulling that hood over their eyes before the axe falls. At Norwich they gave us Adams and axed Hughton to appease the fans. At Man Utd they give the Giggs and axe Moyes to appease the fans. After sacking Laudrup to appease the fans who wanted to keep him they give the fans a long term team favorite gary Monk. I also recall Newcastle gave the fans Shearer when they were in danger of going down. It is called self preservation by the board themselves for their own mistakes and makes it easier to swallow by the fans because they see it as having had people power so they mistakenly feel a sense of achievement. All of the above have made a mistake getting rid of managers too early, with the exception of Newcastle who had no manager as Keegan walked out and Kinnear got ill. All will swiftly regrettheir errors because it is players that need replacing, not the managers and in this day and age thats partly the Chief Executives errors

A bit of magic on radio 5 live this morning. One or two talking heads talking about the Man U situation including a somewhat vitriolic Terry Christian (a lifelong MU fan). The BBC then wheeled in Lily Savage for about 20 seconds of populist whaffle whereupon he was 'savaged' by Christian. He took a couple of minutes out to recover when he came back with the 'speaking as an ex pro' superiority. Again he was put down by Christian who deployed an amazing historical knowledge of the game to reduce our favourite pundit to tatters. At this point I think the BBC withdrew him to save him further punishment. I've waited for three years for this.

Main problem is 75,000+ Man Utd fans now going to be solidly behind their team. Adams has to pick a team of players who can deal with the big stage and not freeze. Ironic that we played Man City last year after they had their manager sacked - let's hope for the same result against Man Utd.

I remember it Barking - a pity he didn't impale himself on the railings on the way down ! Lets hope that City go up there and put them to the sword while they are dazed and wondering what is going on. Three Points at Old Trashyard will do very nicely !

Due to the many managerial changes in the EPL, apparently due to a lack of metal being shown, chemists are reviewing the periodic table to see what is wrong and have discovered that the problem is related to a number of previously unknown elements. These include Hughtonium, a very stable and unreactive element with a high density that makes it useful in the defence industry but appears to have no other practical applications. Also there is Lambertium, an extremely volatile and unpredictable element that will remain dormant and then explode with little notice, making it rather unreliable. By contrast there is a gas called Brucine which, though quite poisonous and expensive to maintain, has proved to be very reactive and to have a number of beneficial uses, as has Pulisigene which was once considered highly toxic and very dense, but has turned out to be extremely reactive when under pressure. It was predicted that Moyesium would have a very long half-life but the data shows that it is actually quite unstable and has a tendency for an accelerated break-down when heat is applied and in the presence of the catalyst Fergusonium.

good for the goose is good for the gander - how can anyone argue that we're better for having an inexperienced manager but who happened to play for the club in the last century - yet somehow Manure won't be!

Great summary of the Adams effect Putney. I thought the board was going to tough it out with CH and then decide. Wrong. They appoint a fans favourite with five games left and a set of the toughest fixtures imaginable. If he loses all five but playing happy clappy football do we then expect him to start next season in charge and work on what went wrong? I'd say yes, give it a go, but suspect it may turn out differently.

This is a good thing for NCFC!
From our teams perspective, I'm sure the lads are even more eager to get up there and get some points.
From a ManU perspective, it seems this decision was made because their season is over already. The board knows it, the players know it and so did Moyes..this just publicly confirmed it.

Kicking out Moxey is not going to make Manure into a better side by Saturday. This is big news in football and they will be rocked to the foundation by what has happened. We must capitalize on the turmoil of the situation and go for jugular from the off. They will definitely be unsettled and nervous - no better time to play them - City must hit them hard. Just get the three points and get out !

Well, let's hope Giggs has the same start to his tenure as NA has...fans behind him saying that everything is much better...but no points...
Possibly also worth noting that against Liverpool we conceded as many goals as we did in the previous 7 home fixtures combined...(and that included games against Spurs and Man City - both quite attacking outfits).
Of course, the "true" fans all wanted attacking football...which we now no doubt will have, but I maintain that, for all his failings against clubs we should be "having a go at", CHs record against the big hitters compares favourably with any club in the bottom half of the league. So, of course we'll never know, but I still think we'd have done better keeping CH to the end of the season and then getting rid. All appointing NA has done is, weirdly, get us relegated but with happier fans...

This is really difficult to gauge. My first reaction was "oh s...!" as I thought that we would be better playing a team set up by Moyes. There were lots of complaints that he set up too negatively at home (where have I heard that before?) Giggs knows the players, knows the way they like to play and is unlikely to play them out of position - another complaint from the Man U faithful. So, Giggs is likely to be more attack minded but, having said all that, Liverpool came here focussed and in no way in any sort of "transition" and we gave them a real scare. I still maintain that if we play like we did in the second half, BUT FOR 90 MINUTES then we can pick up enough points to survive.

GPL, just my opinion of course but I diagree ''nothing has changed.'' Having gone 2 behind under Hughton I think he would have made changes to try and keep the score down. Adams read the game and made decent tactical changes and kept us moving with attacking options. With Hughton it would have been everybody behind the ball and Elmander up top alone. Maybe Adams started the match a tad naive but at least he's not scared. In trying the bring the game to the opposition he is almost the polar opposite of CH.

My gut reaction is that this is bad for us. We can all have a laugh poking fun at Mr Lineker but the fact is we know we were right to get rid of Hughton and we have been better for it, the same may well be true of Man Utd. The crowd at C Rd on Sunday were out of this world, one suspects a similar shackles off reaction at Old Trafford on Saturday.
All this is conjecture. One thing we know is that Neil Adams places great emphasis on detailed planning for every match, surely that becomes much harder when you have never seen a team set up or sent out by the man in the opposite dugout.

I think it matters not one jot who is in charge. Whilst on the surface norwich fans see an improvement in performances from CH I on the other hand see more naivity. We go behind in both matches and cannot come back fom it. Nothing has changed, except the fact that we are behing much quicker in matches. I really hope we get a result on saturday but to be honest I think NA is out of his depth and a bit naive about the standard of opposition he is up against at this level of football. That said, I think he is the type of guy who would learn quickly so i would still have kept CH till end of season and then maybe given it to Adams in the close season

Great post Mickey B - I actually chuckled out loud at the last line! I don't think this will make much difference either way, I think we'd have lost if he stayed and I think we'll lose now. Exactly the same thoughts on this game vis-a-vis if CH were here for this game or not. Know I'll probably get chastised for this, but I'd take Moyes as our permanent boss in a heart beat. Won't happen - but one can dream I suppose.

The other salient point is that similar to the situation we were in, United had a manager who divided their fan's opinion. Getting rid of him, will mean united fans in every sense. Still hopeful of something out of the game though

To be fair I suspect there is a world of difference between sacking someone when the only danger you face is potentially qualifying for the poisoned Europa League and where we find ourselves! For what its worth I think Moyes would have kept them up!